Our Favorite Veteran of Real Wars and the Gold Wars…

Our friend Maurice Jackson at Proven & Probable has just done an interview with another friend of ours: Bob Moriarty, the founder of 321gold.com, one of the best and most popular gold sites on the web. Many of our readers probably know Bob, or at least know about him. We want to nevertheless provide a few introductory words below, to elaborate a bit on what Bob does for those who don’t know about him, and also to let readers know how we met him, why we like him and why we have the utmost respect for him.

Bob Moriarty: war veteran, ace pilot, famous investor, book author and founder of 321gold.com

We first met Bob on the old Kitco Forum, a low-tech, completely uncensored message board for gold aficionadoes that was truly great fun while it lasted. What initially drew our attention was his principled, eloquent and quite vociferous anti-war stance. We and a few others soon joined him in lambasting G.W. Bush and his gaggle of lying neo-con chicken-hawk warmongers at every opportunity. Just as Ludwig von Mises did, we and Bob strongly believe that peace is the “father of all things”, not war.

We mention this inter alia because we have noticed that people that have actually seen action as members of the military frequently turn into the most ardent opponents of war. Bob is a veteran of the Vietnam war; he was an F-4B fighter pilot for the Marines. In fact, when he joined at age 20 he was the youngest naval aviator in the Vietnam war. He achieved the rank of captain at the tender age of 22 and ultimately performed 824 missions. Bob knows war personally and has nothing but contempt for it. He has just published a new book on the topic, entitled “The Art of Peace” (details on where one can get hold of his books are provided at the end of the video below).

Incidentally, Bob is an ace pilot. In 1984 he performed one of his most famous stunts as a pilot, when he flew a Beechcraft Bonanza plane between the pillars of the Eiffel Tower in Paris for the sheer heck of it (scroll to A plane between the tower’s pillars on the Eiffel Tower’s “major events” page, or even better, read Bob’s own account of the event, A Bonanza in Paris).

The Beechcraft G36 Bonanza

Bob has been active in the financial markets as an investor for a very long time. The mining and oil & gas sectors are his specialty, but his knowledge goes well beyond that. We are always interested in what Bob has to say, whether he talks about geopolitics, the financial landscape, or specific investment ideas, and his editorials and analyses at 321gold are among our must-reads. Over the years, Bob has inter alia provided his readers with countless excellent ideas in the junior mining/ exploration sub-sector. Often he is quite literally “going the extra mile”, as he frequently travels to the sites of exploration and development projects to inspect them in person.

Below is a video of the wide-ranging interview Bob has just given to Maurice. Maurice has provided us with a brief summary of the topics that were discussed:

“Bob addresses his concerns over the differences between candidate Trump and President Trump, which have emerged with the recent bombings of Syria and Afghanistan, as well as the potential threat of war with North Korea and or Russia. He then moves on to the big elephant in the room, in the form the U.S. government debt and the treasury bond market and the government’s resolve, or rather the lack thereof, to find a solution to the ever more pressing debt problem. Bob also shares his opinion on the importance of capital preservation in today’s environment and lets us in on which precious metals he is buying at the moment and why. Listeners will also hear about a number of junior mining companies that represent unique value propositions for speculators and investors.

You may have noticed that our so-called “semiannual” funding drive, which started sometime in the summer if memory serves, has seamlessly segued into the winter. In fact, the year is almost over! We assure you this is not merely evidence of our chutzpa; rather, it is indicative of the fact that ad income still needs to be supplemented in order to support upkeep of the site. Naturally, the traditional benefits that can be spontaneously triggered by donations to this site remain operative regardless of the season - ranging from a boost to general well-being/happiness (inter alia featuring improved sleep & appetite), children including you in their songs, up to the likely allotment of privileges in the afterlife, etc., etc., but the Christmas season is probably an especially propitious time to cross our palms with silver.
A special thank you to all readers who have already chipped in, your generosity is greatly appreciated. Regardless of that, we are honored by everybody's readership and hope we have managed to add a little value to your life.

AYGAM – I remember the old Petaquilla Gold bullboard at stockhouse. There was a very knowledgeable fellow there, Panama Gold, that warned investors to stay out of Petaquilla – good thing I sold too as both those companies run by Richard Glenn Fifer (Carles) went tits up. So many got burned on that company’s crooked management. He posted several emails conversations from Bob Moriarty and another poster William Nowotny – I have copies somewhere – Moriarty is lucky he didn’t get sued (or doesn’t) for recommending companies to readers that he knew were being run by a criminal… in my recollection there were a lot that bought on Moriarty’s reco – however, to be fair, he had a couple good picks but definitely he had a lot of very bad ones.

Moriarty wrote a book, “Nobody Knows Anythin” and apparently he was writing about himself since he doesn’t understand the “Nine Ps of Resource Stock Evaluation” that Doug Casey teaches all his rookie investors right out of the gate: Of those 9, Casey says “People,” is by far the most important “P.”

I.e.,… Moriarty should learn that the finest companies are run by ETHICAL people, NOT CRIMINALS!

Richard Fifer (“Swindler of Panama”) was a real crook alright – he issued himself hundreds of thousands of options, then came out with press releases just before he sold all of them a year later. He also embezzled 100s of thousands from Spain while Governor of Cocle Panama – all this became common knowledge and yes, I too can’t believe someone like Moriarty would promote such a scumbag. Someone should make a movie about this criminal Fifer and the stock hustlers that promote such criminal management. I’d pay to see something like that!

However, it appears the law is finally catching up with the Swindler of Panama years later. Wonder if Moriarty will be brought in for questioning and his deals with Fifer?

I’ve agreed with almost all your commentary going back to the old Kitco days (K-1). However, I could not disagree more with your assessment of Bob Moriarty. This guy was an intolerable braggadocio back at Kitco about his self-proclaimed war hero status… this hypocritical idiot was dropping bombs on civilians and bragging about it, and yet has put down every other veteran since. This is the worst kind of hypocrite, the kind of human being imaginable.

Secondly, he was/is a Pump & Dump artist.. granted after being threatened with law-suites, he is now more forthcoming about his compensations for his stock promotions at 321Gold.com. However before, he pumped many stocks prior to the 2008 wipeout getting investors into gold stocks (that he received undisclosed compensation for) precisely at the top before many lost up to 100% of there value. He was also known for his foul-mouthed attacks on other members of forums such as LeMetroPoleCafe.com where he was eventually kicked off because of the many complaints against his unacceptable behavior.

For example, Petaquilla Gold / Petaquilla Minerals – please visit the bulletin board discussions at Stockhouse.com where investors were in an uproar about Mariarty’s fraudulent promotion of these companies under the “leadership” of a convicted felon, Richard Fifer (Carles), who was was wanted by interpol and currently under arrest after fleeing the country of Panama to Colombia. Bob Moriarty was sent emails notifying him of Fifer’s criminal past history including embezzlement of funds as governor of Cocle, convicted narcotics dealer dealing to kids in the former Canal Zone and Panama, his nefarious connections to criminals in Panama, etc. Accpording to the emails and Moriarty’s responses to those emails (all posted at Stockhouse.com), he refused to alert investors to the criminal past of Richard Fifer, the man he was promoting at Petaquilla Minerals, replying that the “best and brightest are criminals (running gold companies)”… something to that effect. I can post the actual emails for anyone interested. Both of those companies crashed almost 90% later that year and eventually went bankrupt. The guy you think is brilliant, lost investors a lot of money in such horrible and reckless pumping of stocks for profit – Moriarty was A DISASTER IN PICKING STOCKS BAR NONE!

“Each (management aka Convicted Felon Richard Fifer Petaquilla Minerals / Petaquilla Gold) is very well done and communicates the very real message of the two companies. They should be commended for having done a great job for their investors and prospective investors. (What an unmitigated lie and disaster for anyone that followed this pump job!).

“Both companies are cheap and that condition won’t last long. With last week’s announcement of higher costs for the project, Petaquilla Copper got hammered. Anyone who doesn’t realize costs are shooting higher is too dumb to own the stock so take advantage of their stupidity while you can. There is nothing wrong with either the stock or the project.” Famous last words before both companies were environmental disasters (operating without permits) went bankrupt.

Bob Moriarty was sent the following document notifying him of Fifer’s felony narcotics dealing conviction shortly after his article “Hitting the G-spot” article (thinking that title with sexual innuendo was somehow cool).

Moriarty’s response? Bob replied with an email on record, “The finest companies are run by criminals and not trust one that wasn’t (run by a criminal)”. He also wrote a follow on article… (undoubtedly for yet more compensation or to run up his stocks (or options) he received from Fifer).

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